Project Spotlight: Social Venture Partners Waterloo Region

Dedication to creating a lasting social impact within the community is central to the mission of local charity Social Venture Partners Waterloo Region (SVPWR). Over the past two terms, Blueprint has been working on building the tools needed to support their cause.

“Each step of the way, Blueprint’s team asked lots of questions to ensure what they were developing matched expectations, and were transparent around their processes. From building in the ability to rank applications to ensuring the portal’s colours matched our brand, they were responsive to our requests, and fantastic to work with.”

- Taryn Graham, Operations & Communications Manager at SVPWR

SVPWR is a charity who activates a network of 90+ Partners: local community builders who strategically invest their time, money, and skilled support in the charities they work with. By pooling the Partners’ investment and skills, and providing unrestricted funding (not limited to a specific project or program) over a three year span, SVPWR makes a significant impact in helping these charities build their in-house skill set and community reach.

They believe in strengthening the Region’s charitable sector by engaging a local community of active donors — and since their founding in 2010, SVPWR has done just that. They’ve leveraged over $500,000 in unrestricted funding into an estimated $3.5M in impact from their donations, pro-bono support provided by the Partners, and further donations inspired by their involvement.

The Problem

Every year, SVPWR chooses a new charity to work with by calling for applications and reviewing them with an Investment Committee of staff and Partners. The committee reviews each application online, and submits application ratings and comments for discussion at meetings. They worked with some great local companies to create the first review portal, but as the organization grew, SVPWR wanted to build something with more features and interactivity.

This is where Blueprint comes in. Our team at BP was able to assess the original portal and use feedback from SVPWR staff and past committee members to work together to determine requirements and a wish list.

The Solution

The SVPWR-Blueprint team has built a group decision-making platform that enables SVPWR’s funding committees to review applications and consolidate their opinions and notes in a single platform. Blueprint’s designers performed extensive user research to create a system that supports and simplifies the committee members’ existing workflows, providing an intuitive experience that makes application review easy and organized.

This workflow entails:

1. Opening up the app to see a list of all candidates

2. Reviewing, rating, and making notes on each candidate in detail

3. Ranking candidates in order of preference

By having a full understanding of each candidate and their potential, committee members are equipped with information they need to make an informed decision.

The Team

The project wouldn’t be what it is today without the hard work of the Fall 2019 and Winter 2020 SVPWR teams. While each worked on different phases of the project, there was a clear through line for collaborative problem-solving and a drive to get the details right.

“Developers often pair-programmed to learn from one another, and worked hand-in-hand with designers to ideate new features and build a pixel-perfect experience. In the end, we’re all super proud to have contributed to such an impactful project!”

- Brittany Lau, Project Manager of W20 SVPWR Team

What’s Next?

So far, SVPWR has just completed round one of their 2020 Investment Committee assessments, and early feedback from the committee members has been very positive! Next up, the team will be working on scaling the application so that it can be used concurrently to support their other programs and other philanthropic investment funds.

Special thanks to the Blueprint SVPWR Team and SVPWR for contributing to this article! For more information about SVPWR, you can click here.